Give Chase or be Caught
by Dream5588
Summary: Starfire never was the easiest to relate to. Her enthusiasm was meet with uninterested stares or apologies. And with her strong feelings crowding her judgement, a certain thief seizes his chance. Is Starfire giving chase or running to be caught?


Suddenly inspired by a post I saw on Pinterest, here is what my mind made up next.

Disclaimer: I own not a single character.

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She was used to getting doors slammed in her face. They hadn't had a mission in months and Starfire was riddled with boredom, often in search of ways to burn off her excess energy.

"Hello my dear friend Raven! Would you be interested in a human game of-" her words were cut off with a glare from the solemn girl. "Ah...have a night of good then Raven…" Starfire finished in an understanding tone, kicking her feet against the ground. She moved towards cyborgs room, explosions and gunshots well heard from the confines of his walls. She pushed open the door and was met with the sight of Cyborg sitting cross legged, face inches from the monitor, screaming into a headset. Red and orange lights flooded the blue hued room as Cyborg blew up the enemies home base and yelled in victory. Starfire joined in on the celebration.

"Yeah! Woo, that was a nice overtaking of the enemies teams!" She held up her hand for what she was recently taught was a high five. Cyborg slammed his palm to hers before starting a new round in his game. She knew she had to speak fast before he was lost in the game again.

"Cyborg, I was wondering if one such as yourself would partake in a-" her cheerful words were overlapped by her teammates shouts.

"Take to the left and roundabout their troopers, Red, you go right with me to their base," He barked out the orders. Before giving a slide glance to Starfire who looked so out of place in his room.

"Yeah I'm a little busy tonight, but I'm sure Raven would love to do whatever it is." He waved her off without sparing her another look instead focusing his attention on shooting aliens tailing his troops. Starfire's eyes were wide as she looked at the game in slight disgust and made her way back out of the room. "Wait!" Starfire stilled and felt a pang of hope bounce in her chest. "Wait Wait Wait! Don't break the forcefield now!" Cyborg yelled into his headset along with some other crude words to his teammates. Starfire had to squash the pang of hope herself and closed the door quieted behind her, not that it mattered, the sounds of the game blocked out anything. She could have slammed it closed with all her might, probably breaking the door into several pieces and Cyborg still wouldn't have noticed.

She thought to herself that perhaps she should try and play the games of the videos and perhaps one day bond with her team. Before she could usher herself into her own room she heard a muffled roar down the hallway. Beast Boy! Surely he would be interested. Starfire smiled to herself and moved down the hall without any hesitation despite the growls and howls coming from the green boy's room. She knocked. And knocked again. And right as she was about to rap her knuckles against the door one last time, a strained "one minute" was diluted through the door. Starfire heard several things crash and a few unknown noises filled by a strained hush before the door opened just a sliver for Beast Boy to poke his head out. His eyes widen at her appearance and he forced out a smile.

"Ah, Starfire, what can I do," his voice was rough and his body appeared to be handling something from behind the door. "...for you?" He finished before looking behind him to shoo something. Another muffled roar sounded and Starfire's eyes flickered in curiosity. She tried to push open the door to get a better look inside the room but Beast Boy stopped her.

"I would let you in but my room is a mess right now and I wouldn't want you tripping over anything or hurting yourself." Starfire only lifted her feet off the ground and floated mere inches in the air before trying to push open the door again. Beast Boy once again stopped her and continued his excuse from before. "It's really messy and-"

"How about I help with the cleaning?" Starfire offered as it would provide her both something to do and company. Beast Boy looked ready to turn her away gently before a growl sounded and he winced.

"I'm sorry I got to go handle something, I'll see you in the morning!" His words rushed and frantic before he swiftly shut the door in her face. A faint lock was heard being switched into place before the a loud trumpet sound and a huff followed by many other animals sounds went off. The door opened suddenly after the huge chorus of animals and Beast Boy only begged her not to tell Robin before shutting the door once more and trying to handle whatever zoo he was trying to keep calm in his room.

That was how Starfire found herself in her room, setting up a game board by herself, her window open inviting a nice summer night breeze into the room. Perhaps she could play the game by herself. Yes she deemed it was worth a try. And so Starfire proceeded to move from on side to the other playing the roles of two different players in hopes of recreating the fun and excitement. She has never played a human board game before and always desired to see how they worked. Her fingers idle traced her game piece after she had moved it five spaces up. She supposed this was fun. Her green piece was winning so far while her yellow pieces stood ten spaces behind. Yes how enthralling it was. She pulled a card from the deck only for a strong wind to blow it from her hands and out the window. She watched as it idly drifted in the breeze until it landed in the water floating on top, a little ring of ripples disturbing the surface.

Who was she kidding, this was not fun. Yet Starfire didn't understand why it wasn't. The humans on the packaging all had big smiles on their faces and seemed to be laughing. Why wasn't she? She turned towards her mirror and made herself smile in a last attempt effort of having fun. Her face contorted into a grimace instead and that was all it took to encourage her to start packing up the game and just head to bed. Maybe Robin would have time to play the game with her tomorrow. He had been rather busy lately always waving her off with an apology saying there was work to be done. With all this work he was doing then surely he would be free sometime soon when there was no more work to be done. Or so Starfire concluded and held onto what little hope she had. When she had finished packing up the game and set it aside and climbed into bed. She was too distracted by her thoughts that she never noticed a pair of eyes peering in through the window, watching the whole ordeal. Only when she was lost in dreamworld did the dark figure move. He swiftly and silently stepped through the window and monitored the girl laying softly in the bed. She didn't seem to stir and the figure laid his eyes on the game she had been playing by herself. He let out a quiet scoff before moving onwards. As he exited the room he heard a mumbled Robin from the sleeping red headed girl. It only fueled his reason for coming here and set him off to work quickly.

The blaring sound of the alarms woke Starfire up from her slumber, her heart racing and her mind reeling. Her door busted open and in ran Robin, heading straight for the window. Her arm reached out to latch onto his arm but two things set warning alarms of her own inside her head. One, this Robin was much taller than her, and two his arm which was currently in Starfire's grasp was much bigger than her Robin's. In turn he was much stronger than Starfire had anticipated and she was forced to move alongside him towards the window.

"Wait! What has happened Robin?" She asked though the sinking feeling in her stomach wouldn't go away. The man she thought was Robin angled his head towards her and in the dark light a face very similar to Robin's appeared before her dressed all in black with a large red X adorning his chest. "Robin…?" her voice hardly above a strained whisper as they were inches apart. The man's impassive face grow to that of distaste as grasped her chin in a hold tilting it up to meet his line of sight. Though a mask similar to Robins sat across his eyes, Starfire knew it wasn't him.

"I'm not your Robin sweetie," he narrowed his eyes at her bright green ones before pushing her hold off of him. He made a move to jump out the window, but he turned back once more flickering a card between his two fingers. "Though I believe this belongs to you." He set the playing card down on her desk before making his leave. Starfire stood stunned into stone. She only moved when the rest of her team crammed into her doorway and crowded around in her room, panting and beaten up. Robin was the first to speak, limping to Starfire.

"Where did he go?!" He yelled, eyes narrowed in pain yet frantically searching the room for anyone hiding in the shadows.

"He fled out the window just a few moments ago…" Starfire answered though still in confusion. "Who was that?" She asked trying to grasp what was going on.

"If only we knew that, I searched all my databases and couldn't get a match from our security system," Cyborg cited off while browsing the blue screens littering his vision.

"He is a thief for one. He stole the Red X suit!" At the mention of Robin's alter ego, the team took a heavy breath. It took them awhile to trust their leader again after he went undercover and hid secrets from them. Robin didn't notice their sudden hesitation and directed his attention back to starfire. "Why didn't you stop him?"" he asked trying to keep an accusatory tone out of his voice. From Starfire's suddenly downcasted face he knew he failed.

"I tried, but he…" the words died on her tongue as he realized she didn't know why she didn't start fighting him the moment she figured out it wasn't Robin. She swallowed hard before trying to come up with a reason that wouldn't admit her foolishness. "He was too strong." She settled for, knowing it wasn't particularly a lie. The team seemed to buy her word, all but Robin. His face blubbled red with anger as his fists clenched until his knuckles sheened white. His narrowed eyes turned to a glare and his words flew out in a haste.

"Too strong?" he uttered the words as if testing them on his tongue. "Or maybe you are too weak?" He glared at her angry with everything. His suit is missing, in the hands of an infuriating thief who managed to get the upper hand. That's obviously the only reason why Robin couldn't stop him. The thief was no way stronger than him. If Starfire couldn't stop him, nor the rest of his team, then it was up to Robin, the leader to. And with all the aches in his body and yellow and purple bruises bubbling up for once he felt the dreaded feeling of shame welt up within him. He failed. He turned briskly around, missing the tears brimming in Starfire's eyes, and stormed out of the room in a haze of negative emotions.

The air in the room stilled as tears silently fell from Starfire's eyes. Beast Boy reached out and touched her arm gently, trying to soothe the crying girl.

"Star…." Beast Boy looked for the wards to say only to come up short. Cyborg seemed to help out.

"You know he didn't mean that Star. He is just…" Cyborg sighed trying to decipher his friends actions. "Frustrated. He is upset and frustrated and he took it out on you." Beast Boy nodded his head adding on.

"Come on Stary! Cheer up! We have another mission now. We can go out there and fight crime instead of being coop up in here like always." he tried to make light of the situation with a big goofy smile across his face. Star wiped away her tears and nodded, agreeing with her friends. Raven had waited until Cyborg and Beast Boy excused themselves to go back to bed to give a subtle nod to her fellow female teammate. Her soft tenor voice sounded as she headed for the doors.

'I'll give him nightmares for making you cry." Like that Raven was gone sinking away into the darkness and Starfire didn't know if she should stop that or not. Some small petty part of her felt like it was justice, but a bigger part overlapped that feeling with guilt.

He didn't mean it. He was just upset. Sentences she chanted over in her head. She knew she was strong, at least physically, she could take on anyone and everyone who came after her. That she was confident in. But emotionally? She finds herself swimming in her emotions, lost at sea in murky waters. For when she experiences an emotion she felts it double fold, strong, fast and intense. So when she heard Robin's hurtful words, her insecurity, her sadness, and her longing weighed heavily on her shoulders. She was in emotional turmoil. Before she knew it she was outside soaring through the sky. If Robin thought she was weak, then she knew one way that would prove otherwise. Catch the new persona of Red X herself.

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Review to tell me if you want me to continue this or not! I personally love Teen Titans since I was a kid and am going through the nostalgia of it all with great rigor. See you maybe next time!


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